The Fear of Death

Few people actually fear death. There are certainly some who do, those afraid of what it feels like to die. For most, however, the real fear deals with what comes after death.

People are frequently afraid of the unknown, and death is the gateway to the biggest unknown of all. Whole religions are founded to provide an answer to the question: what happens when we die? We speculate about the possibility of an afterlife, wonder what it might be like, and console each other in times of grief with our beliefs about it.

Some of us fear hell, a place of eternal torment for the souls of the wicked. Some of us fear becoming ghosts, mere shades of what we once were, doomed to wander the Earth, alone and powerless, for eternity. Some of us even fear paradise, simply because of the sheer magnitude of what such a thing entails, or reincarnation because of the inevitable loss of all that has mattered most in that person's life.

But virtually everyone favors any of those possibilities over the alternative: oblivion.

We cannot stand to even consider the possibility that all we are, all we have done, and all that we've gone through in this life should ultimately amount to nothing. We can barely even comprehend the notion that at the end of the road waits not a clearing, but a void. The idea that we should simply cease to exist, that our souls might vanish into an abyss, is terrifying.

When a loved one dies, we grieve. We despair for the loss of that person, whom we will never see again. What we feel is not pain on that other person's behalf, but a sense of loss in ourselves; a negative change in our own lives that cannot be undone.

It is that element, irreparable change, that compels us to fear. We learn early on that some consequences cannot be altered, that some regrets can never be made right. As a result, when the winds of change blow, all but the most discontent run for cover.

Clinging to that which is known, whether real or imagined, we find solace from the unknowable. We cannot stand to face the things that lurk in the darkest shadows of our own minds, so we hide behind curtains of faith and clutch to this reality like an anchor.